Board of Directors

John Loll Chair

John has been involved with the performing arts for over 30 years, starting with a children's theater company in his home town of Pleasanton. He made contributions there over an eight-year period as an artist, educator and administrator, and served briefly as the company's executive director. Over the years he has played important roles to broaden arts experiences for his community, including serving on the City of Pleasanton's Civic Arts Commission, contributing time and treasure to numerous local arts organizations, and fundraising for the construction of the Firehouse Arts Center. John and his family have been regularly attending Festival productions for over 15 years, and he is excited to be working with SF Shakes to encourage greater participation in (and support for) arts experiences. John has a Cinema degree from the University of Southern California. Professionally, he serves as the Treasurer of Dodge & Cox, a San Francisco based investment management firm.

Cynthia Francis Vice-Chair

Cynthia is the US Managing Director of OpenCities, Inc. with offices in San Francisco and Melbourne, AU. She is a serial entrepreneur with extensive experience building and leading pioneering companies in digital and social media. Prior to working in technology, Cynthia earned a BA in Theater and Dance from UC Berkeley, and worked in non-profit theater and arts organizations including four years at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. She has been a two-decade long supporter of SF Shakes as an audience member, patron and enthusiastic Shakespeare Camp mom. Seeing the value of Shakespeare camp for her three daughters was a catalyst to join the Board and look to further leverage her shared passions of theater, kids, activism and technology.

Robert Chansler Treasurer

Rob brought his enthusiasm for Shakespeare to the South Bay from Pittsburgh where he did graduate work at Carnegie-Mellon University. Rob and his wife Kim attended Free Shakespeare in the Park on their first date. Their daughter Katie is a 4-year veteran of Bay Area Shakespeare Camps and was an acting intern in the 2006 Free Shakespeare. During the day, Rob manages software development for LinkedIn.

Michael Li-Ming Wong Secretary

Michael has drawn wisdom and inspiration from Shakespeare’s works for more than two decades, and he believes strongly that Shakespeare can and should be enjoyed by everybody, irrespective of education or background. Michael served as Shakespeare coach to his former boss, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in preparation for her cameo appearance in Henry V at the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington DC; he also wrote his own wedding vows in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet. By day, Michael is a partner in the San Francisco office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, and the proud father of two boys who already delight in the sword fights, mistaken identities, hilarious cross-dressing and voyeurism permeating Shakespeare’s body of work.

Pamela Sogge Immediate Past Chair

Pam has held executive positions in education, consumer and SAAS software companies. Pam’s work in the non-profit community has focused on education and social services. She is very excited to direct her energy to the Festival and advance its mission of promoting the enjoyment and understanding of Shakespeare through its youth programs and public performances.

James A. Babcock Member

Jim has been on the board of SFSF for over twenty years. He first became involved after one of his daughters played a part in the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is a retired architect from the firm of Sandy/Babcock International. He graduated from the University of Illinois with a BA and Master's of Architecture. He is on the board of the Presidio Historical Association and is a founding director of Trans Pacific National Bank.

Nishanth Billa Member

Growing up in India, Nishanth’s love for Shakespeare started in middle school with The Merchant of Venice. He believes that Shakespearean themes are timeless, cross-cultural and all-encompassing. They help enrich people’s perspectives in a fast-paced world. He is excited to serve on the board of SFShakes and is passionately committed to its mission of making Shakespeare available to all. Nishanth is a core member of Oracle’s Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) team with extensive experience in executing M&A. Previously, Nishanth was an investment banker at Credit Suisse and also served on the Board of the Iyengar Yoga Association of Northern California, a non-profit dedicated to the practice and teaching of Iyengar Yoga. He holds a B.Tech in Manufacturing Engineering and an M.Tech in Industrial Engineering from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur.

Alexandra "Lex" Hamilton Member

As a Bay Area native, Lex has attended and participated in many of SF Shakes' programs over the last two decades, including four years as a camper and one year as an intern in the Bay Area Shakespeare Camps. As a direct result of those years at Shakespeare Camp, Lex and a few other campers/classmates started a drama club at their middle school, which is still going strong after almost twenty years. From those early experiences, Lex's love of Shakespeare and SF Shakes has only grown. She is particularly passionate about continuing to make Shakespeare accessible to people regardless of background. Lex is a trial lawyer by trade, handling catastrophic personal injury cases at The Veen Firm, P.C. in San Francisco.

Roshni Jain Member

Roshni is a theater nerd at heart and loves engaging her right brain to support the festival in bringing Shakespeare to students and local communities across the Bay Area. She is passionate about the mission to bring Shakespeare to all as she believes in its power to transform lives. Roshni worked in management consulting for many years and now leads product at Cardlytics. She holds a B.S. from the University of Pennsylvania and an MBA and MA in Education from Stanford University.

Aaron Kabaker Member

Aaron came to Shakespeare in college, where he realized how much he actually enjoyed the Bard when his plays were taught as performance. He performed with the Stanford Shakespeare theater troupe, appearing in Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and As You Like It, and after graduating regularly patronized shows at the Folger Theatre and the Shakespeare Theater Company (STC) in Washington, DC. He is thrilled to be a board member at SF Shakes, which has a goal of bringing Shakespeare to children across the Bay Area through a special blend of performance and study. Aaron works in Business Operations for Google and has a BA in Public Policy from Stanford and an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Jennifer, and a rambunctious canine named Dupont.

Raymond Kutz Member

Ray is a manager of pricing strategy at Oracle and has worked in various capacities of marketing, product and services management for the past 20 years at Oracle and Sun Microsystems. He has a BS in Biology and Secondary Education from the University of Missouri and an MBA from San Jose State. Ray has made San Francisco home for 30 plus years after growing up on a farm in Missouri where access to theater and performing arts was extremely limited. That limited access to the arts influences his passion today for making the arts accessible to everyone. This passion was awakened after studying and performing in improvisational theater and volunteering as a photography docent at the Ansel Adams Gallery in the late 90's. More recently, Ray has been singing with the San Francisco City College chorus. His involvement with the Festival began by attending performances and "paying to get out" after each performance. After learning more about the mission and observing the impact of the Festival on multiple communities, Ray joined the board in 2006 and began work as the Board Advancement Chair. He looks forward to seeing the Festival celebrate the next generation of thespians and arts supporters in the Bay Area through its outreach into the Bay Area and communities beyond.

Peter Logan Member

Peter works as a consumer advocate lawyer in San Francisco. He brings a long time love of Shakespeare to his work and his life. Beyond Shakespeare’s depiction of lawyers (he actually likes them; it’s the bad guy that want to “… kill all the lawyers.”) the reach of history and the verities of human nature are invaluable to his work. He has lived in SF since attending USF Law School in the 1970’s, and over the years enjoyed many performances of Free Shakespeare in the Park. He believes in SF Shakes mission to bring Shakespeare, and live theater, to the wider community. He is an active member of SF Rotary and does various kinds of volunteer work. Peter admires major league pitching, as well as music, theater and other arts (and plays in a blues band). His daughter recently received a BFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School, and is currently working in NYC.

Linda Merriweather Member

Linda has been a co-writer/producer/performer with The Shlepperellas: Mothers Gone Mad! A native of Southern California, she studied drama at UCLA before moving to the Bay Area. She also studied improvisational comedy at Stanford University under the direction of Patricia Ryan and Dan Goldstein. Linda worked at Hewlett-Packard in marketing and customer relations, eventually becoming a manager.

Craig Moody Board Member

Craig believes strongly in the ability of Shakespeare’s works to penetrate and affect the lives of people of all communities and means. He sees Free Shakespeare in the Park as the best way of doing that. Craig’s interest in Shakespeare arose at the age of four when he attended the plays produced by the Theater Department at Indiana University. (His father was the Director.) A childhood actor, he acted through high school, college, law school and summer stock. He was educated in Indiana, Hawaii, Massachusetts, California, Michigan, England and Germany. (BA Indiana University, JD University of Michigan.) For years a supporter of many Shakespeare companies and a Director of California Shakespeare Theater for five years, he gives pre-show talks before their Shakespeare plays. After service in the United States Marine Corps, Craig had an antitrust litigation practice in San Francisco from which he retired two years ago. Craig and Kathy, his wife of forty two years, have lived in the same house in Piedmont for forty years. Their son Ross lives a few blocks from them and works in the City. Craig would like to emphasize that his interest in SFSF, whose performances he has gratefully seen since Golden Gate Park days, was cemented by attendance at the classes presented by Artistic Director Rebecca Ennals and her several assistants. He highly recommends those classes to all.

Dennis Tseng Member

A South Bay native, Dennis became a Shakespeare fan during a trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in high school. He went on to train in acting at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, performing as Hamlet and Richard III, (though Henry V will always be his favorite.) Upon graduation, he founded an ensemble theater company, Thirsty Turtle Productions, whose mission was to produce theater that toed the line between fantasy and reality. After five full seasons, Dennis left to pursue his MBA at the Yale School of Management. He's currently the head of talent for SYPartners, an organizational design and transformation consultancy in San Francisco. A child of two immigrant parents, Dennis is a proud recipient of the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans.

Jeff Wutzke Member

Jeff values the works of Shakespeare as vehicles for both artistic and educational expression, stemming in part from his own high school experiences with Shakespeare in rural West Virginia. He believes the original Shakespeare can and should be accessible to all, but also values modern interpretations and adaptations. Jeff is Of Counsel at the law firm of Goodwin Proctor LLP, where he specializes in real estate and finance, and also serves on the board of the San Francisco Friends of Chamber Music. He holds a bachelor’s from Dartmouth College, an M.S. in environmental policy from U.C. Berkeley, and a law degree from the University of Virginia.